Actions Educational Leaders Must Take When Kids Do Racist Things At School

Students at a Southern California elementary school chose to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Black History Month in alarmingly racist ways. One greeting card was addressed to “my favorite cotton picker,” and it said “you’re my favorite monkey.” It also included a crayon drawing of a monkey and a person hanging from a tree. The card was made specifically for Black students at Pepper Tree Elementary School in Upland, California. When situations like this occur, Black students, their parents and family members, and Black educators often deem school leaders’ responses inadequate.

Christopher Newman, the parent of two Black boys who attend the school, told me that leaders were made aware of the racist valentine two weeks before any action was taken. It was drawn in his son’s sixth grade classroom. “Meanwhile, my son had to sit with this student in his class for that entire time,” Newman notes. “The student who made the card called him a monkey, a slave, and a cotton picker for weeks prior to the valentine’s card being sent out. Other Black kids at the school were told they would be hung from a tree.” Accordingly, schoolmates also made monkey sounds when Newman’s son and other Black children walked by.

In a KTLA television interview, Maylana and Rome Douglas, an interracial couple who has three children attending Pepper Tree, described other ways students there were celebrating Black History Month. Accordingly, one of their daughters was told she was going to receive a card saying, “you’re my favorite slave, and they were going to show her as a slave hanging from a tree.” Also, classmates were reportedly giving back rubs to Black kids because February is their month. Rome said their daughter was told she’d receive massages just half the month because she’s only half Black.

Newman, who’s a professor of education at Azusa Pacific University, contends these aren’t isolated incidents. Last spring, he says Black students were taunted with monkey sounds. Their parents demanded the school take action. Leaders promised training for teachers and staff, Newman recalls, but they contended it was too late in the school year to initiate new professional learning workshops about racism. As far as he knows, those workshops never occurred. Unsurprisingly, then, there were subsequent racial incidents. For instance, one Black student was called a nigger while playing soccer on the school’s playground last September.

Upland is an ethnically diverse community located 38 miles east of Los Angeles. According to data from the California Department of Education, Pepper Tree Elementary School is 3.1% Black, 13.1% Asian American, 38.6% Latino, and 35.6% white. Give or take a few percentage points, the school’s racial composition largely reflects Upland’s demographics. Regardless of how many or how few of them attend a school or live in a community, no Black child anywhere deserves what those at Pepper Tree have been experiencing. It’s noteworthy, though, that these racist incidents didn’t occur in some rural town that’s 90% white — it happened in what’s effectively a suburb of our nation’s second-largest city.

In our 2019 Education Week article, my Ph.D. advisee James Bridgeforth and I explained why we weren’t shocked by a recently-released photo of four elementary school teachers posing with a noose at a school located in Los Angeles County. Admittedly, we were surprised that the principal was the photographer. Bridgeforth and I also highlighted in the article other racist incidents that had recently occurred at K-12 schools in Alabama, Ohio, Iowa, Idaho, and elsewhere in California.

Bridgeforth has since systematically catalogued more than 500 racist incidents that took place in K-12 schools across every geographic region in the U.S. between 2014 and 2019. In addition, his recent research study published in the Journal of School Leadership is based on a rigorous analysis of 140 press releases, emails, letters, and social media posts that educational leaders released in the aftermath of racist incidents that occurred in their schools. Here’s a link to the letter principal Becki Modereger sent the Pepper Tree school community. Beyond writing statements, what should educational leaders do when students behave in racist ways at school?

There are four reasons why I’m not inclined to recommend suspension and expulsion as the only disciplinary options. First, because every situation is different. Some, but not all warrant kicking a kid out of school. Second, because decades of research – including my study of 3,022 public school districts across 13 states – shows that Black students are suspended and expelled more often for the exact same or less egregious behaviors than are their white classmates. I therefore worry that Black children will be disciplined more frequently and more harshly than their white peers for saying or doing something racially offensive.

Third, suspending students punishes them, but doesn’t guarantee that they or their schoolmates will understand why something was deemed racist. And fourth, individual suspensions ultimately absolve the school of its culpability in maintaining an educational environment that allowed such incidents to occur.

Here are five actions educational leaders must take when kids do racist things at school:

1. Reject The ‘Kids Are Just Being Kids’ Explanation – Adults too frequently excuse incidents like those that occurred at Pepper Tree by arguing that kids aren’t racist and that immature jokesters didn’t really mean to cause harm. School leaders have a responsibility to help members of their school communities understand that it’s neither normal nor acceptable for anyone to behave in racist ways, including students.
2. Communicate Authentically – Even though she likely wrote it herself, Principal Modereger’s letter to her school community sounds no different from an emotionless racism response message crafted via ChatGPT. Situations like those that occurred at Pepper Tree ought to outrage leaders and everyone else who works at the school. Sanitized notes that neglect to specify what happened makes leaders sound like they don’t really care about the students and families whom the racism harmed.
3. Don’t Swiftly Move On – When racist incidents occur, leaders typically feel a desperate urge to move on as quickly as possible. I advise against this. Instead, leaders should move on when the students and families who were harmed agree it’s time to do so. Also, to minimize the risk of recurrence, leaders should use these situations as case examples in professional learning workshops for teachers and school staff in future years.
4. Prioritize In Proper Sequence – Above all, leaders ought to prioritize the students and families whom racist incidents most negatively affected – listen to them, express and demonstrate genuine care for their wellness, and seek their input on what would make the situation right. Secondarily, leaders should focus on ensuring that students who behaved in racist ways don’t feel ashamed, but understand why what they did was wrong.
5. Don’t Wait Weeks – Black parents say Pepper Tree’s principal knew about the racist valentine for weeks before taking action. Due process is important. Some situations require leaders to conduct a thorough investigation before taking action. While that’s occurring, though, something has to be communicated to the school community. Absent this, students and families who were targets of racism are left feeling neglected.

Instead of waiting until a crisis erupts, it’s better for educational leaders to get ahead of situations like those that occurred at Pepper Tree. They shouldn’t assume that students know better or that teachers know what to do when racist things happen in their classrooms. This is one of many reasons why educational leaders must unite with others to resist politicized campaigns that aim to ban the teaching of racial topics to students in K-12 classrooms and to educators who participate in professional development activities.